Posted
by
timothyon Tuesday October 16, 2012 @10:04AM
from the there-is-only-one-ftc dept.

concealment writes with this selection from Ars Technica: "A Democratic congressman who played a leading role in the fight against the Stop Online Piracy Act earlier this year has taken up a new cause: shielding Google from antitrust scrutiny. In a strongly worded letter to Federal Trade Commission chairman Jon Leibowitz, Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) praised Google's contribution to the nation's economy. He warned Leibowitz that if the FTC does choose to initiate an antitrust case against Google, Congress might react by curtailing its regulatory authority."

Kind of stupid to say that they shouldn't be investigated just based off the 'boost' they give the economy. I'm sure MS gave a huge boost to silicon valley, but that doesn't mean what they were doing was right or that it should insulate them from any investigations.

Some would say that Microsoft got away with their practices for a very long time just because they gave a boost to the economy. However like all things, Microsoft's influence began to diminish as soon as the computing ecosphere changed and it became apparent that the political fallout from prosecuting Microsoft would be offset by the number of potentially new campaign donors produced by the internet based economy.

Google was one of those new donors and the letter from Rep. Polis is a reflection of this new

If corporations were not people, the actual people who break the law for profit and the people who supervise and direct them would be the ones with legal responsibility for their crimes and abuses. We can't have that, that would be class warfare. How dare you rise against your betters and their incorporated proxies.

If corporations were not people, then when a corporation broke the law/got sued for a bigillion dollars, the stockholders would be held liable... this includes YOU with money invested indirectly via your 401K. Wanna loose your house/savings?

If corporations were not people, then when a corporation broke the law/got sued for a bigillion dollars, the stockholders would be held liable... this includes YOU with money invested indirectly via your 401K. Wanna loose your house/savings?

No they wouldn't. Incorporation introduces limited liability for shareholders. That aspect doesn't depend on corporate personhood at all. That's the whole point of incorporation (as it predates corporate personhood).

As a shareholder, even a voting shareholder, you'd not be personally liable for damages done by the corporation if you had no knowledge of them or means to influence them. Piercing the veil would show that you had done nothing inappropriate and nothing but your shares would be on the li

If corporations were not people, then when a corporation broke the law/got sued for a bigillion dollars, the stockholders would be held liable... this includes YOU with money invested indirectly via your 401K. Wanna loose your house/savings?

I would suggest.. maybe.. yes. Let the shareholders lose their investments.

This would bring an ugly bloodletting the first time or two that a corporation went through this. And then shareholders would start placing their money into companies with reputable management teams.

It would be ugly in the short term, but far better for business and the economy in the long term.

A corporation does not shield anyone from breaking the law. Anyone who breaks the laws will be subject to prosecution under the law. If someone is directing others to break the law, and that can be shown as fact, they are more liable because more ranges of charges and liability would apply (racketeering, operating criminal enterprises and so on). The corporation denotation stops people who took no active role in the crime or managing of the company they own (or own stock in) from being held personally liable. The CEO and board have a fiduciary duty to operate the company within the laws and rules and regulations for those shareholders.

The problem with your confusion is that some laws carry only a fine for a penalty and corporations generally are the ones who pay that penalty. Another problem is that often criminal prosecution requires more evidence that what can be gained when asking tight lipped people questions. Think about how many times a case goes unprosecuted because witnesses are more scared of the perpetrators then the law and refuse to offer eye witness accounts of insights into why something happened. What can be more scarier then potentially being the one who could cause you and everyone else around you to lose your jobs and retirement. People will not volunteer to do that normally unless they have more to lose themselves.

One of more ignorant things I've read lately. Do yourself a favor, and read up on the history of the corporation as individual. One interesting thing you'll find out (among many others) is that although it is frequently referred to as if it is enshrined in law, it is not. It's a fiction passed off originally by the railroads in an attempt to fend off anti-trust regulation.

I'm really mystified by this notion that corporations would have free reign if they weren't legally people (which they aren't). You don't

People are upset about this primarily because at some point, it was decided that corporations should enjoy 1st amendment rights. I think there was a case around a large corp lying through their teeth about their products, and winning the right to do so under the 1st amendment.

What planet are you on? Or perhaps more accurately, what decade are you from? Slashdot hasn't given karma for "Funny" in over 6 years (I don't know exactly when the change occurred; it was before I first got mod points).

In fact, Funny is a bit of a dangerous mod to seek if you want karma, because while you'll get the occasional mod point of "Interesting" on a funny post, you're also likely to draw at least a few Troll mods from people who either have no sense of humor or think you're being serious, or Offto

I wish Liberterarians would get some real friends so they'd stop posting their drivel on the internet for attention. You guys should arrange a meetup or something, get it all out of your system and stop shoehorning your idiotic philosophy into every single god damn slashdot submission.

The problem is that Ayn's premise was flawed. Companies don't hire lobbyists because they have to, they hire them because they want to influence (purchase) favorable rules and regulations. Lobbyists are not defensive, they are offensive.

The way you brought the subject up, and the fact that you pointed out a flawed premise as if it was factual is what made you sound like you were shoe horning Ayn into the conversation. You gave the impression that you were a blind follower of her.

except in real life the only reason the railroads ever got built was because the government gave them low interest loans and free land. if these guys actually had to buy land and pay market rates for money like good capitalists have to they would never have built anything

Wesley Mouch. No one liked Wesley Mouch. But it was Rearden Metal, not the railroads, that hired him. Jim Taggart and his railroad were already chummy with Washington in the beginning of the book. Rearden hired Mouch to deal with Washington so he didn't have to, which was one of his first fatal errors b/c Mouch just used his lobbyist position to enrich himself and get himself a powerful government job rather than actually lobby for the interests of Rearden Metal.

Jim Taggart and his railroad were already chummy with Washington in the beginning of the book

Yeah, this point was conveniently overlooked. They've already been given tax breaks, handouts, protections, etc from the gov't. But the did it 'all on their own' and not at all at the cost of others.

I thought this was the biggest fallacy of Atlas Shrugged: Railroads aren't economically sustainable in a laissez-faire system, or even possible to build without eminent domain, so Rand's point about Nat Taggart building his railroad with nothing but his brains and braun was a bunch of bullshit. History especially proved Rand wrong: just compare the European and Asian railroads to American ones. Not only are the 'socialist' rail systems of Europe and Asia much more modern, but they're also utilized much more and provide immense opportunities not available in the States. Outside a couple large metropolises (which have 'socialist' subways and trains), in the States a person is screwed without a car. It's a Catch-22 for many: can't get a job without a car, can't get a car without a job. The U.S. has Amtrak and freight trains and that's it.

Lobbyists work all sides of any big issue. There might be one industry in favor of a piece of legislation, and another opposed. Just because a piece of legislation is "pro-business" in one sense, doesn't mean it benefits all businesses, let alone all businesses equally.

IOW, while it's true that companies hire lobbyists offensively to craft legislation, other lobbyists are hired to protect against the initial lobbyists.

"Well, we can't say if it's illegal until we review the results later."

This is the exact same kind of thing they do in corrupt nations where the government has all kinds of laws you can't help but violate if you want to survive, which then get held over your head for "donations", or if you get too uppity.

Congress can't conjur into existence magic to put Humpty together again, but they can beat the hell out of anybody with the temerity to try.

I'd say the whole open source movement is evidence to the contrary. Google is a marketing company which has somehow managed to convince a strongly anti-marketing parish (techies) to support it. I don't expect any particular moral or civil rectitude from them however, and I don't know why anyone would, except to the extent that they are keeping an eye on whatever filters through the public relations lens.

If there is real proof that Google has a monopoly (i.e. they control the market) and that they have acted illegally by manipulating results wrongly or have forced tied products to their search engine, they SHOULD be investigated. The real issue here is that Google has a LARGE share, but does not have a monopoly. In addition, does anybody have any real proof that Google has manipulated results or forced other products to be tied to their search engine?

Good examples are ATT, IBM and MS. Is there any proof that Google has acted like these companies did? I have not seen it.

Do I not understand how search engine choice works? To me Google is not forcing users to use their search functions like MSFT was doing by forcing PC OEMs to push out Windows, right?

If we take a look at general websites with search functionality, don't they return internal results at the top and external results at the bottom because users of a particular site are likely to be interested in content pushed out by the same site their on more than external?

Do I not understand how search engine choice works? To me Google is not forcing users to use their search functions like MSFT was doing by forcing PC OEMs to push out Windows, right?

That was just one part of the case against Microsoft. Another part was Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows. Many felt that Microsoft abused their dominance in the OS market to dominate the internet browser market. A number of people feel that Google is doing essentially the same thing, using their dominance in the search market to push their other services onto their users.

If we take a look at general websites with search functionality, don't they return internal results at the top and external results at the bottom because users of a particular site are likely to be interested in content pushed out by the same site their on more than external?

I don't think that applies here, in my opinion. I doubt you'd find many people that go to google.com to find informat

I think the problem is that if Google has a monopoly, or has abused it, it's still small fry compared to Apple's use of it's digital music monopoly to leverage entry into the tablet and cellphone markets from the portable music player market, especially when coupled with it's in-app purchase restrictions and anti-consumer deals with the eBook market after it's entry there also, and similarly small fry compared to Oracle's purchase and subsequent abuse of Java, or Facebook's clear breach of data protection l

Good points in the start. Now, what I find interesting is that you point out Apple's massive use of a market to attempt control of an industry. Yet, the FTC is ignoring it. What strikes me is that if FTC is going after Google, they NEED to investigate Apple as well. Otherwise, it is an indication of massive corruption going on.

Personally, I say that unless FTC has proof on Google, they should let sleeping dogs lie.

I think what bugs me the most is that the FTC announced they were looking into Google, Announcing that you want to look into them comes across more as a threat than anything else. No need to make some public show of it, you inform Google and you start your investigation, don't drag it into the public eye unless you have some proof and you're actually starting some sort of hearing/trial against them.

Being a monopoly is not illegal, abusing that monopoly to prevent others entering the market or to spread your influence into other markets is. Google is completely safe on the first count, a small team could start up a search engine in a matter of weeks, but I can see how there are areas of concern in the second.

Google uses it's search page to serve a wide variety of content these days and there have been accusations that they unfairly increase the rankings of their own services in the past (though I'm no

Ok, so what I hear are accusations. I do not see any proof on-line or even from you. The truth is, that if Google's results are rising to the top, I suspect that is because
Likewise, assuming that the issue is android and mapping, as I have pointed out to others, android is opensource. For that matter, so is google mapping since it is all in javascript. The voice is a separate product that Apple wants, but does not want google to place their other apps on ios.

Is there any proof that Google has acted like these companies did? I have not seen it.

Nor has anyone else.

There is a witch hunt against Google because it provides a set of services that provides better value than any of its competitors. There is absolutely nothing preventing anyone else from getting into search, except the need to provide a better product. This isn't like AT&T, IBM, or Microsoft (as you rightly pointed out), where there were insurmountable barriers (ability to install competing phone lines, incompatibilities causing vendor lock-in, and [what should have been illegal] exclusivity agreements with the entire supply chain).

The only thing keeping someone from competing with Google is that people like Google. Using a competing search engine is trivially easy (you just need to go there), but Google just provides a better service.

This witch hunt is just a desperate attempt by failed competitors to get the Government to make Google less useful, because the competitors know they can't compete on their merits.

Agreed. While I think this guy's heart may be in the right place he needs to realize that his branch isnt the executive branch. However, this is an interesting application of checks and balances so if congress truly does think they're over stepping their boundaries then this may be a justified course of action.

Two very obvious examples of "forced other products to be tied to their search engine".

You have it backwards. IF Google had a monopoly in search engines, it would be abusing its monopoly position if it forced Google users to use Gmail for their webmail. Having the Google search engine used in Gmail has nothing to do with monopoly, as there is no dispute that Gmail is not in a monopoly position in the webmail market.

Not being able to stick non-Google ads on their services is likewise not a monopoly issue, as none of those services (like Gmail) are in a monopoly position in their respective ma

So not licensing something to a competitor is somewhere between shady and "being evil"? It's not like Google is the only provider of maps and directions. Does Apple license iOS to it's competitors? Is there iTunes or iCloud for Android?

So, why will apple not move some of their apps or simply release the specs on say their word editor files? Apple wanted what Google has for voice control. Google said that they would do so, if apple would allow them to put other products on the apple system. Apple said no because they did not want the competition. Exactly HOW is google the bad guy here?

The point is, the only ones claiming monopolies on search are Google's competitors, who casually happen to also run search engines.

The reality is a search engine is just a link to a destination, so unless you are preventing use of other search engines (which is basically impossible) then it's impossible to actually exert monopoly influence on search.

Why would you go through the hassle of making a complain unless you had some interest in it? It's pretty normal that the person making a complaint feels they're being wronged somehow, as oppose to some random guy.

First off, creating a unified account is not illegal. Far from it. Apple does it. MS does it. Companies that offer a number of services does this. So, I do not understand why you think that this is illegal.

And as to google map coming in the top, well, who has the dominate mapping? Google does. As such, I am not surprised to see it up there.
I note that when I do this I see mapquest right behind. But that is expected. There remains a lot of mapquest links around the area.

Fair use allows google to show a MapQuest link in its search results. But to actually show a map Google would have to licence map data from MapQuest. Copyright law prevents Google from using other peoples data the same as they use their own. Google can only show a snipit or a summary. The same goes for other types of data. Google can't include good twitter or facebook integration without a license or an api.

Skyhook, or even MS, are free to take Android and create their OWN version of it. What Google is doing is saying that we sell a package that includes our services with a set interface. There is NOTHING like MS who had closed source and actively changed it to make it impossible to switch off them without loads of pain for the seller AND customers.

It seems an anti trust case would be clear cut. Look at the algorithms. If the algorithms are creating a horizontal monopoly by intentionally hiding the compitition in search results then Google is guilty. If the algorithms just show the links that people click on the most then Google is innocent.

Why is it they are only willing to go to the mat for corporate interests and never seem to have time to do the business of the people? They spent most of this year on vacation but they seem to have time to threaten a government agency if they dare touch a rich corporate contributor. Shouldn't they be threatening them if they DON'T go after Google?

You don't "buy" favor in Washington, you buy favor by making sure that you are indispensible to (lots of) congressmen through both direct funds and influence in their own backyard. A K Street lawyer with a nice donation and a healthy expense account is really just there to remind congressmen of how much good you do back in their home district, and what an awful economic blow it would be to lose you from their little corner of the world.

This kind of stuff goes on all the time, though it may not be so blatant

... that actually gets it. He was one of the 5 or so congresscritters that "stood in the way" of SOPA during the House Judiciary Committee hearings. He even understands the seedy underbelly of the net without going apeshit with wild claims. Someone this "net literate" in Congress is a rare thing indeed. There are a few with Rs next to their names that also get it, but they are rare as hen's teeth also.

>Google is a monopoly

The market is that way because every other competitor's product sucks more. Yahoo somehow keeps finding ways to suck more as time goes on, even though it seems like it can't possibly suck more. Google Maps is unparalleled, for example. Nobody else has the equivalent of Google Earth. There is Google search and then there is "everyone else" - mirroring "IBM and the seven dwarfs." They may as well be Cuil. And after, what, a decade of Hotmail being a laughingstock, I'm not motivated to use And unlike other companies that "maintain monopolies," Google doesn't go out of its way to "cut off the oxygen" of its competitors or partners - they don't have to.

I don't like big corporations and Google's size makes me uneasy. But I have problems finding serious fault with how they got to where they are today.

And when the FTC actually ever takes Microsoft seriously, then maybe I'll give them the benefit of the doubt going after Google. But they didn't and won't so I won't.

We don't have much detail yet, but I think this is really going to be about Google "bundling" services. When I search for a local restaurant, a map and reviews pop up. When I type a ticker symbol, a stock quote appears.While I love these services, I see how they might be questionably anti-competative. See Microsoft and the trouble they got in over Internet Explorer, Media Player, etc.It seems it would be bad for consumers if they find Google guilty, but I'm not sure if the quality of the tool shields them from the claim that they coercing consumers into using their products.

We're facing some of the core issues that were warned about so long ago.

Do Not Track is proving to be a key issue, with a stand off building between advertisers/marketers/corporations, and various 'providers', and users. DNT has the potential for wrecking the models of many content providers, crushing the online ad business, and doing so by ensuring users can be 'left alone' despite the powerful drive to reach them no matter their preference. This is not much different from the Do-Not-Call fights not long ago with the telemarketers. Will the FTC and other agencies get into this fight as they did with Do Not Call, on the side of consumers, or wil the cave to the Internet and try to avoid it? Watching Microsoft try to implement DNT and being told outright that some advertisers will just ignore it sounds like the boilerroom types threatening to ignore Do Not Call, and indeed some did. Only fines worked, and then not perfectly. Will we get DNT?

Google is of course doing whatever is legally permitted, and more where there isn't much legislation to call upon. We will have to decide how we want to be tracked online, and then petition our representatives to force that, and then deal with the global Internet and all the non-US entities that may have different ideas. I don't blame Google for this, but until we legislate it, they will do whatever makes money.

And if we succeed in limiting Google and others, we should expect that the days of 'free' on the Internet , as in 'free services', are numbered. GMail is only free to you because ad revenue supports it. When you start denying the ads, you will need to pay for what was supported by them. It's just that simple. Will we? And then, google gets out of the 'beta' model and gets into the paid-for model, where customer service is necessary, and people will complain when Gmail goes haywire.

There is an outfit that is doing the paid-for model already, and seems moderately adequate. Yahoo! mail is available with POP/IMAP access for a fee, and they seem to be doing it well enough for a small fraction to pay. If I were the Yahoo! CEO, I would be lobbying behind the scenes for DNT, as it would force others (Google mostly) to find some way to fund their operations without stealing the info users would rather they not, and might force them into a new revenue model. One Yahoo! could possibly compete with.

Between the Partiot Act, TSA, SOPA, DMCA, copyright law abuses, and domestic surveillance, our government is edging closer to a full-fledged confrontation with the electorate. We will have to fight for our freedoms again in my lifetime. Privacy will not be the issue. Due process will become the issue. Watching me, intercepting my communications, and compelling my cooperation without discernable benefit are the coming issues. Already here, just not yet painful enough for us to complain. TSA Kabuki Security Theatre is one of these, NSA snooping another, and government management of healthcare another. When the governemnt decides to offer you different healthcare options based on your apparent lifestyle, based on your online data, we'll realize that none of this was good for us. And government-provided anything will always suffer from financial constraints. That will lead to making decisions based on budgets. Don't think it won't. Already, with private health insurance, you make these decisions.

When the governemnt decides to offer you different healthcare options based on your apparent lifestyle, based on your online data, we'll realize that none of this was good for us.

I was right there with you up until this point. Right now we have a healthcare system where unless you earn a very good salary you will not get good care. I'd rather be judged by my lifestyle then my wallet. People are routinely sentenced to death under our current system because they can't afford $1000 co pay per weekly dose of medication, and these are people who have made a good effort to take care of themselves. You can be a life long chain smoker who really brought about your own cancer, but because yo

Dear Mr. Jon Leibowitz,Just because google is large should not make them above the law. As a congressman you SHOULD both know better and SHOULD be protecting the people from companies of ANY size. Shame on you!

I don't think the people who blindly defend Google have an understanding of what Google is doing with its search results. Let me give you my experience as a site owner.

I run a popular sports website. On April 24 2012, I saw a 30% decrease in traffic. I figured that maybe interest in my sport had cooled off because the season was winding down, or that it was a temporary situation. But the traffic didn't get any better. But then I noticed when searching Google that my site wasn't coming up as often as it used to. In fact, when searching for topics that were only covered on my site, my site wasn't being returned in Google. If I went to Bing, they came up right at the top, but Google searchers were left thinking that no such information existed on the internet.

I learned that on April 24, Google put in an algorithm that penalized websites for "webspam". What is webspam? They identified it very vaguely, but the examples they gave were egregious - people who put thousands of unrelated words on a page, or people who were running massive link exchanges designed to boost other websites' popularity in Google's results. But my site did none of that - yet Google cut it from appearing in the search results by about 70%.

Do you know what recourse I had as a site owner? Zero. Google doesn't have a customer service department. They have an online forum staffed by volunteers who are, quite honestly, arrogant and abusive. Occasionally an actual Google employee drops in, but they won't answer questions because they don't want people to be able to figure out their algorithms.

My story has a happy ending because last week, my penalty was lifted. No explanation, no communication, it was just something I noticed. Many others have not recovered, and there is always the threat of having the penalty applied again. To be clear, this penalty is applied by an algorithm, not by a human. There is no human ability to override it. That's just wrong, and scary too.

Some have speculated that Google's algorithm penalized sites in order to force them to purchase advertising on Google. Imagine that you're making $500 a day from your #1 Google spot. No need to advertise. But if Google demotes you, then maybe you'd spend $250 per day to get back to the #1 spot? It's speculation, but well-reasoned - before I learned that I was demoted by a penalty, I increased my advertising with Google to try and get traffic back. Google's advertising profits went up after they put this penalty in place.

Another reason that Google gives for penalizing sites is if they have "too much advertising". So they want sites to remove advertising. That itself is an antitrust problem - because less advertising on sites means more demand for Google advertising.

Google also penalizes websites that run affiliate programs that Google doesn't find "add much value". Let's say that you have a site that reviews books, and in your review you provide an Amazon link so that if someone buys the book, you get a commission. Google doesn't like that. They want to send the user to Amazon instead. They want to cut out the middleman.

Google may also be (or may soon be) penalizing or rewarding sites that don't mark up their data in a way that Google can interpret with an algorithm. But since Google has expressed an interest in cutting out the middleman - websites - when it comes to returning information, this could be an attempt to force sites to train their own replacement. They're already doing this - they pull data from Wikipedia (which Wikipedia editors have manually scraped from other websites) and display it right on Google's page. No need to leave Google for your information.

By applying penalties, Google has become like a credit bureau. Last I checked, credit bureaus were regulated in the USA because they have the power to do significant damage to people via things like errors and omissions. Credit bureaus have to give you a chance to correct your credit rating, to fix errors, and they have to give you a general idea as to what

It's probably completely unrelated to the fact that Google has a huge presence [coloradodaily.com] in Boulder, CO now.

As part of said presence, I'd have to disagree with the "huge" characterization (which isn't stated in the article). It's growing, but still a fairly small office. Certainly dwarfed by the nearby IBM presence, as well as that of many other large tech companies (many storage companies in particular have huge presences here). To give you an accurate idea of the size, the space mentioned in the article is an old Circuit City store, remodeled for Google's use, and it constitutes 90% of the Google office spac

Two wrongs doesn't make a right. Just because you believe another company may be doing the same nefarious things doesn't mean Google should be left off the hook. I'm not saying Google is guilty of anything, but the investigations should start somewhere and Google may as well be first.